
Qass. 
Book. 









^w 



\v.' 



IE FUNERAL ADDRESS 



DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



rtELlVBRFD IX 



THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT, 



April w^ isaa, 



Rev. C. M. BUTLER, D.D, 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

HENRY B. ASH ME AD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 

Nos. 1102 AND 1104 Sansoji Strert 

LS65. 



</^/P^6^^^ 





FUNERAL ADDRESS 



DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



BELIVERED IN 



THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT, 



April 10 y 1865, 



Rev. C. M. BUTLER, D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 
Nos. 1102 AND 1104 Sansom Street. 

1865. 



E 



^57 



ii^s 



Rev. and Dear Doctor: 

We were so much interested, gratified, and, we liope, benefited, by your 
touching and eloquent address this morning, and felt that it so perfectly reflected 
the feelings and sentiments of our own hearts, that, desirous in common with many 
others of preserving it in a permanent form, we venture to ask a copy of your notes 
for publication. With great respect and esteem, 

^ • Truly yours, 

AY. T. Sabine, 
Andrew Wheeler, 
John Tanguy, 
John P. Rhoads, 
James A. Kirkpatrick, 
Paul G. Oliver, 
Robert Reed, 
Samuel Simes, 
Charles G. Sower. 
Philadelphia, A2)ftl 19, 1865. 



West Philadelphia, A2))il 24, 1865. 
Dear Brethren: 

I have written out as perfectly as my memory would enable me, the 
hastily prepared address, delivered from a few meagre notes, which you received so 
kindly, and have requested for publication. Conscious as I am that it is your pro- 
found interest in the subject which has led to your high estimate of my most 
imperfect presentation of it, I yet too completely share the universal desire of the 
people to render honor to the memory of our dear departed President, to feel at 
liberty to withhold the address from publication. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

C. M. Butler. 
Rev. W. T. Sabine, Andrew Wheeler, <Stc., &o. 




TO THE MEMORY 



REV. DUDLEY A. TYNG, 

ONE OP THE FIRST TO SEE, AND THE BRAVEST TO DENOUNCE THE SYSTEM AND 

THE SPIRIT OF SLAVEHOLDING, WHICH HAS PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO 

THE HORRORS OP REBELLION AND WAR, AND ASSASSINATED 

OUR BELOVED 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 

THIS ADDRESS IS INSCRIBED. 



ADDRESS. 



We attend to-day an exceedingly solemn and affect- 
ing funeral service. I say that we attend the service — 
because, although the remains of our late lamented 
President are not here, we nevertheless take a real and 
substantial part in the high and sacred ceremonial ap- 
pointed for his obsequies. The marvellous agency of 
the telegraph has annihilated distances, and brought the 
most remote States, as it were, around his bier. And 
to-day there is no distinction between friends and 
mourners. We are all mourners. There is scarcely a 
house in all our broad land which is not draped in the 
symbols of sorrow, or a heart that is not heavy with its 
reality. We are all children, gathered in passionate and 
sobbing grief around the prostrate form of our murdered, 
beloved, and honored father. To-day tens of thousands 
of ministers of God speak to millions of the assembled 
people. Their voice is one, their theme one, their lam- 
entations and their affectionate eulogies the same. They 
all unite in the same faith, the same prayer, the same 



6 

vow. Their faith is unshaken that God has not for- 
saken, though he has chastened us, in our hour of 
triumph. Their prayer is that, chastened and corrected, 
but not given over unto death, God's " loving correction 
may make us great." Their vow is to cleave with new 
purpose of heart to the God who in wrath remembers 
mercy, and who fits us for high duties only by subject- 
ing us to the discipline of mighty sorrows. 

It is a new thing, this actual participation of a whole 
nation in the funeral obsequies of its fallen chief. 
When the lamented Henry Clay w^as buried, a large 
portion of the country was conscious, at the moment, 
that the mournful ceremonies were in progress ; but not 
then, as now, was the whole nation officially invited and 
expected to take a part in the funeral obsequies, by 
gathering in their houses of worship and joining in the 
offices for the burial of the dead. But, indeed, every- 
thing connected with this tragedy is new\ Such a re- 
bellion as that which has brought this revolting atrocity 
in its train is new in the history of the world. There 
have been revolutions against oppressive governments, 
or in behalf of rights withheld; there have been conspir- 
acies and revolts like that of Cataline, by bad men for 
the indulgence of atrocious passions, and the overthrow 
of states; but, like Cataline's, they have been limited in 
their field, and speedily suppressed. But never before 
did a revolt from a beneficent government occur for the 
purpose of obtaining freedom to make and keep men 



slaves; and neA^er before did so vile a scheme cover such 
a wide area with desolation, and hurry such multitudes 
into graves, and keep itself alive in evil power for a pe- 
riod so long. It is a new thing in these latter clays to 
have at the head of a nation a man of such unique and 
simple greatness; and new certainly is that unparalleled 
and profound sorrow which has benumbed us into indif- 
ference for A'ictories, and changed the rapturous hope of 
anticipated peace into the inconsolable anguish in which, 
for the moment, peace or war, victory or defeat, seem 
equal, because he, our father, is not with us to sustain 
us in the one and rejoice with us in the other. And 
new no less are the stupendous events and contrasts 
which have been crowded in the first two weeks of April. 
Within that period the triple lines that guarded Peters- 
burgh and Richmond have been stormed. General Lee 
with the remnant of his army has surrendered. Mobile 
has fallen, Raleigh has been occupied, and Jefferson 
Davis has become a fugitive, who will either escape in 
company with eternal infamy, or be laid hold of by in- 
exorable justice. Within that period the old tattered 
flag of Fort Sumter, reverently preserved for such an 
occasion, was raised over the luins of the fortification 
from which treason struck it down, on the fourth anni- 
versary of the fatal day that saw it lowered; and the 
same devout soldier who surrendered it with patriotic 
agony lifted it to its old place, with a gratitude that was 
too sacred to be exultation, amid the choakiner cheers of 



assembled thousands and the thunder of the victorious 
fleets and armies. And then, on that very night, "when 
our beloved President had reached the point which he 
had been patiently laboring and hoping to attain for four 
long cruel years — at the precise crisis of his profoundest 
satisfaction and his brightest promise, he was instantly 
struck dead by the hand of an assassin ! Surely these 
are solemn events — startling contrasts. Surely the 
crime of murdering such a man, so merciful and mag- 
nanimous, at such a time and amid such events, and 
with such a place of honor and veneration in the nation's 
heart, is new and unparalleled in its guilt. Surely God 
is moving among us with majesty and power, and speak- 
ing to us in trumpet tones. Let us boAV in filial awe 
beneath his chastenings, and listen reverently to his 
teachings. 

And now it becomes us to endeavor to interpret this 
awful providence, to comprehend the causes and the 
character of the profound emotion which fills our hearts, 
and to study the solemn lessons which God intends that 
we should learn. 

I. 

We are so startled and stricken by the event, in part, 
because we had a strong persuasion that our President 
came to the kingdom "for such a time as this;" and was 
designated by God as the chosen instrument to take us 
safely through the perils and perplexities in which we 



are involved. And now he is taken away from us! 
Hence we feel bewildered, as well as bereaved. It had 
come to be a settled conviction of the people of this 
country that Abraham Lincoln had been trained and led 
and elected to accomplish the work of our national re- 
generation. When we look back to the period of his 
election, we see that the time was then ripe for revolu- 
tion. We had been for half a century sowing the wind, 
and then was heard the first hoarse breathins; of the 
awakening whirlwind. The slaveholding South had 
been led, through interest, to stifle its convictions of the 
sin of slavery. It had learned successively to tolerate, 
vindicate, and applaud this institution ; until at length 
it claimed for it a divine sanction, and denounced as in- 
fidel all who believed that it was evil. Under its influ- 
ence, character in the slave States had become arrogant, 
dictatorial, self-willed, unrestrained, and, when thwarted, 
cruel. It is now evident that the irrepressible moral 
conflict between the principles of free and slaveholding 
communities was about to be transferred from the arena 
of discussion and of politics to the battle-field. Our 
Government was to be tried to the uttermost. We were 
to be sorely tried and chastened, but not given over 
unto death. In that crisis we looked to Mr. Lincoln to 
weather the storm, and felt that God had placed him at 
the helm. If when the storm raged highest, and we 
seemed about to be engulphed or driven and crushed 
upon the rocks, we doubted for a moment his ability and 



10 



skill, or feared that God had given us up to destruction, 
that apprehension did not long continue. We were soon 
settled in the conviction that he was our Heaven desia;- 
nated preserver; and that some of the fjuahties and 
peculiarities which had created our misgivings, v;ere 
precisely those which fitted him for this fearful crisis. 
We saw that he was at the same time firm to principle 
and pliant to circumstance — like a ship which is held by 
its anchor, but yields gracefully to the sway of tides. 
If he had been less firm to principle, he would have 
yielded to the enormous pressure of intimidation and 
cajolement which friends and foes brought to bear upon 
him. If he had been of more rigid personal will as to 
modes and policies, then he could not so wisely have 
adapted himself to the rapidly changing exigencies of 
the times, and the corresponding moods of the public 
mind. The nation was to be brought to its present con- 
victions by the stern logic of events. These convictions 
constituted his starting-point. And ^^et he was ready to 
step back, and stand with the people at the point which 
they had gained, in the full conviction that they would 
soon advance Avith him to his position. It was this re- 
ligious fiiith that our President had been given to us and 
fitted for us^ in order to save us at this time of peril, 
that caused us to be so startled when he was suddenly 
removed. It is difficult for us to comprehend, as we no 
doubt shall, that his pecuhar work was done, his mission 
ended, his reward ready. 



11 
II. 

And we feel this death profoundly, because we affec- 
tionately regarded Mr. Lincoln as pre-eminently our 
President — our chosen and our real representative. 
Louis XIV called himself the state. The two Napo- 
leons have claimed that they tvei^e the people repre- 
sented, — the incarnation of the nation. What Louis 
claimed on a theory of divine, and the Napoleons on a 
theory of human right, Mr. Lincoln ivas for us, in our 
theory, and in our feeling. lie was more than our 
official, he was our actual representative. He was the 
concentration of our principles, purposes, and feelings — 
many consentient wills and hearts compacted into one. 
And this is what he supremely wished and aimed to be. 
He regarded it as his highest honor and duty to repre- 
sent the conscience and patriotism and will of this great 
nation. He had full f\iith in the theory of our Govern- 
ment as a self-government by elected magistrates, which 
was no less from God, because it was through and for 
the people. Hence he felt that he was sent, not to de- 
feat, but to further the people's settled will. Hence all 
our enthusiasm and generosity and magnanimity and 
patriotism were bidden to go to Washington, and to 
speak and act through him. Hence, as the incarnation 
of all that was best, without that which was poorest and 
lowest in us, we loved him as a second and better self — 
the possible self which we wished to be. When there- 
fore he was struck down, stunned and speechless, we 



12 

too were stunned. We were at first cast into a silent 
and stupid apathy of grief, to be succeeded, when we 
were roused from it, by a passion of keen and indignant 
sorrow. Then it was revealed to us how much we had 
loved and confided in him. We had come to feel that 
we were sure he was doing wise and right things, even 
when we could not see them to be so; because it had 
proved to have been so, many times before. We felt 
that if we knew all the complications of his position we 
should see that he Avas acting wisely — just as we would 
act, and as we would have him act, in such a crisis. 
Therefore, when he Avas so suddenly removed, it seemed 
as if there could be no one to take us into his heart and 
counsels as he had done, and understand and feel Avith 
us as had understood and felt. He Avas our Moses Avho 
had only just taken us over the blood-red sea of rebellion, 
and had but begun to sing Avith us the song of triumph, 
when he Avas taken aAvay ; and Ave had expected that he 
Avould lead us across the desert into the promised land. 
But indeed there is no Avide desert to pass over. We 
are on the boixlers of that land. On the very day of his 
death our great leader had looked upon it from his 
Pisgah of observation, and had rejoiced at the goodly 
heritage upon Avhich his people Avere about to enter. 
Oh faithless, impatient, sorrowing hearts, Be still, be still, 
and know that God is God; God not only in his justice 
but in his rounded attributes of Avisdom, righteousness, 
and truth, which are all but ministers of his love. 



13 

III. 

Our grief is profound, not only because of the startling 
nature of this blow; not only because our President 
seemed providentially designated and supremely quali- 
fied for his high office, but because we had come to feel 
for him a warm personal regard, and to take great pride 
and satisfaction in his peculiar character and gifts. He 
was so utterly void of pretension, so simple and plain in 
speech and manners, that it took us some time to learn 
that he was no less great than good. We had come to 
understand him well and to rejoice in him. He was dis- 
tinctively a product of our institutions. Most of our 
eminent statesmen upon the seaboard have been more or 
less modified by the infiuences of foreign culture and as- 
sociation. Not so Mr. Lincoln. He had taken into his 
great nature all the influences, and ideas, and feelings of 
the West, from all its classes; and stood forth the rep- 
resentative of its vigor, its humor, its energy, its confi- 
dence and its success. He was one of the most genuine 
and truthful of men. He made no professions and had 
no affectations; and was to a marvel, for a man who had 
risen from so humble a position, free from egotism. He 
had not even that subtlest of all egotism which besets 
especially plain men who have risen high; that which 
hides itself under the profession of being void of it. He 
was simply himself, and acted out himself, and said no- 
thing about himself. 

He had a big and busy brain. His mind was not in- 



14 

deed elegantly cultured, nor did he possess a brilliant 
imagination, nor, so far as we know, strong powers of 
philosophical insight into abstruse themes. But his mind 
was singularly sound, sagacious and shrewd. It Avas 
also self-distrustful, slow and pains-taking. He came to 
understand men and things, not by sudden insight, but 
by careful and repeated meditations. He looked wide, 
and he looked deep, and he looked all around, and he 
looked inside and outside, and he looked many times be- 
fore he came to a conclusion. And then it vjcis a conclu- 
sion. And although he was not imaginative, he was 
gifted with a sort of witty and quaint fancifulness, which 
clothed his thoughts in epigrammatic forms, which com- 
mended them to the popular apprehension, and fixed 
them in the memory. And then the thorough honesty 
of the man's nature, and his freedom from passions and 
resentments, allowed his clear mind to work strait for- 
ward to just conclusions. Hence it was that the whole 
nation had learned to feel confident that the President 
would not represent their first impulsive and hasty judg- 
ments, but their sober second thoughts. 

But it was the character rather than the intellect of 
Mr. Lincoln that made him so dear to the people. His 
character was indeed beautiful and noble. So simple, 
so honest, so just, so benevolent! I should say that he 
was a man of full and tender benevolence, and with an 
affectionateness and sensibility that were deep and true, 
without beinp; sentimental or demonstrative. But he was 



15 



altogether peculiar in this — that the whole big volume 
of his nature rolled on in one current of justice, gener- 
osiiy, mercifulness and magnanimity. There did not 
seem to be even any little eddies of resentment and ani- 
mosity. It was a deep, clear placid stream that filled, 
but did not overflow its banks. If it had not the rush 
of the torrent, neither did it have its turbidness; if it 
was without its sparkle, so also it was without its shal- 
lowness. It is remarkable, very remarkable, that during 
all the exciting years of his administration, there is no 
record of a word of passion or resentment spoken or 
written by him. There have been no deeds of personal 
revenge. Severity Avas most alien from his kind forgiv- 
ing and genial nature. Not only in public, as an homage 
to the proprieties of his exalted station, has he uttered 
no sentiments unbecoming the placable Father of all his 
people J but it is well known that in the intimacies of 
social life he never gave way to those impulses of indig- 
nation which were felt for him by all patriotic and loyal 
hearts. Never, since our Government was organized, 
has such vile vituperation been heaped upon a public 
man as upon Mr. Lincoln. Without one particle of reason 
for such a representation he has been depicted, at home 
and abroad, as a hideous monster in character, in morals 
and in manners. And yet he has never noticed these 
foul libels. He seems to have known from what spirit 
they came, and to have expected them; and to have 
estimated the force of the violent passions raised against 



16 

him and his governmrnt, with the unimpassioned calm- 
ness with which he would calculate mechanical powers- 
And yet, no doubt, this persistant defamation must have 
wounded his affectionate and honorable nature. As it 
did not embitter, it must have ennobled and exalted 
him. AVhen I recently saw him at the anniversary of the 
Christian Commission in the Capitol, the central figure 
of that vast assembly, as I looked down upon him from 
the clerk's desk, I was struck with the change that had 
taken place in his countenance since I had last seen him, 
three years before. His face was furrowed as by many 
cares, but had a strange look of patience, meekness and 
fatherhood, mellowing his old look of honest and genial 
energy. He entered into the exercises of that evening 
with an absorbed earnestness which suffered no abate- 
ment to the end of the five hours during which they con- 
tinued. It was indeed towards the close of it that a 
simple but impressive little ballad, called ''Your Mission" 
was repeated, as it was whispered to me, by his request. 
There were stirring songs of patriotism that night, whose 
choruses were like the clash of cymbals ; but that which 
he wished to hear again was the simple and touching 
little ballad, "Your Mission." There was something very 
affecting to me in this circumstance. He seemed to sit 
among his people as one of them, and to feel and to de- 
sire to have them feel that in this great crisis each should 
know and fulfill his work for his country and humanity, 
whether that work were great or small. The object of 



17 



the ballad was to make the humblest feel that he had 
some task to do; and that it was important because the 
combined result of all that was to be done would be 
glorious. At one verse of the ballad sung with exquis- 
itely simple pathos, I observed that his face worked with 
deep emotion. This was the verse — 

If you cannot in the conflict, 

Prove yourself a soldier true, 
If where fire and smoke are thickest, 

There's no work for you to do : 
When the battle-field is silent, 

You can go with silent tread ; 
You can bear away the wounded, 

You can cover up the dead. 

These things, and things like these — sympathy with 
the suifering, generosity to foes, a strong mind and a 
full heart, a spirit not of fear, but of love, and of power, 
and of a sound mind — these are the characteristics 
which have so endeared him to the nation, and explain 
its passionate outburst of universal sorrow ! 

IV. 

It is one of the chief elements of our admiration and 
reverence for Mr. Lincoln that he was the champion and 
emancipator and the martyr to the emancipation, of four 
millions of slaves. And yet he was the fartherest possi- 
ble from being a theoretical, hasty, impulsive reformer. 
It is true that from his first entrance into public life he 
was profoundly impressed with the evil and the sin of 



18 

slavery, and with its absolute incompatibility with the 
first principles of our Republican institutions. He began 
his political career with the announcement that there 
were two systems, two forms of society — the slave-hold- 
ing and the free — which could not continue to subsist 
side by side. His one great political principle which 
shaped all his subsequent opinions and policy, was the 
essential equality in right of all men, and therefore the 
duty of human governments to secure to them that right 
by law. He knew that this was the prime principle of 
our confederation; and he believed that the false gloss 
upon it which slavery had introduced would finally be 
expunged. But this was always with him a principle, 
and never a fanaticism. Hence he was patient, steady, 
slow sometimes — too slow and undecided we thought — 
in his dealings with it. He did not believe that this 
evil fruit of slavery, grafted on the stock of liberty, w^as 
to be removed by cutting down the tree. If he could 
not discern how it was to be done, he was ver}^ sure it 
was not to be done that way ', and had full faith that in 
some way it w^ould be accomplished. Hence, never for 
a moment did he give in to the feeling of some of the 
more vehement anti-slavery men, that the slave States 
might be permitted to establish their secession. That in 
his opinion, would be, if not the cutting down of the tree, 
at least he feared the throwing of all its generous 
juices into the grafted branches, to nourish and multiply 
the poisoned fruit. How strong his faith and feeUng 



19 

upon this subject were, appears to us now, with new dis- 
tinctness, from the remarkable declaration which he made 
w^hen he stood under the folds of the flag which he raised 
four years ago on Independence Hall. As he thus raised 
it and stood beneath it and spoke, he said in substance 
to all the world: "This is the banner under which I en- 
list, and this is what I understand to be meaning of the 
service in which I am engaged." His observation was 
to the effect that the Declaration of Independence gave 
promise that in due time, " the weights should be lifted 
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have 
an equal chance;" and to this he added, wnth a reference 
to his own feelings, which was unusual, the solemn assev- 
eration "that if the country could not be saved without 
giving up that principle, he was about to say that he 
would rather be assassinated upon the spot than to sur- 
render it." The Lord be praised that the country has 
been saved, not by the sacrifice, but by the maintenance 
of that principle; and that he Avho uttered this noble 
sentiment has been the instrument of providence in its 
realization. And alas ! he has been assassinated, not 
because of its failure, but because he was the agent of 
its success. In time, "due" but earlier that he or any 
one deemed possible, the awful weight of bondage has 
been lifted from the shoulders of an outraged race; and 
to us, in dying, he has left the duty of seeing that they 
"have an equal chance." These are plain words, but 
they have mighty meanings, and involve lofty obliga- 
tions. 



20 

Seldom has any man been placed in a position to be- 
stow such a boon upon a race, a country, and the world. 
For it was not only liberty to four millions of present 
slaves, but no less to the multiplying millions of their 
descendants, who would have succeeded to their bond- 
age. It was not only a liberation of the slaves, but of 
their masters from the bondage of the evil engendered 
by their mastership. It was the liberation of the coun- 
try from a political dominance and dictation, when the 
alternative was resistance with war, or submission with 
disgrace. And this magnificent service to his country 
Mr. Lincoln did not hurry to render, that he might win 
by it the enviable eclat which it could not fail to gain. 
He was cautious and slow, lest he should defeat by haste 
the result which he felt confident would be wrought out 
by time. Few persons now think him "to have been pre- 
cipitate. Many regard him as having hesitated too long. 
Now that this act has passed into history, we feel that 
God guided him alike in his hesitation and his decision. 
If he had been egotistical, and eager, and impassioned, 
and impressible, he might have brought on anarchy by 
precipitation. If he had not been firm he might have 
yielded to the intimidation which the remaining slave 
power of the South exercised through its vassels at the 
North, and delayed indefinitely, or too long. At the 
right, ripe time, he issued his proclamation of eman- 
cipation. Unparalleled is the boon which to bond and 
free, to North and South, he has thereby bestowed. 



21 



Wilberforce was said to have ascended to Heaven, bear- 
ing with him the chains of eight hundred thousand eman- 
cipated slaves. Our wise, and honest, and fearless leader 
has emancipated four miUions, from the most accursed 
and accursing system of slavery which the world ever 
witnessed. Alexander, of Russia, has been the honored 
instrument of liberating twenty-five millions of his sub- 
jects from serfdom; but the serfdom of Russia is pale by 
the side of the blood-red iniquity of Southern slavery. 
Oh, how noble a work was this, and how well performed ! 
This slavery in our midst was an angry and spreading 
cancer directly over the nation's heart, and a steady and 
skilful hand was required to cut it out without destroy- 
ing tlie life of the body politic, into all of which it would 
soon shoot its poisonous fibres. He has destroyed it, 
and in destroying it, has fallen. He is a martyr to the 
baffled and exasperated slave spirit. He heard and 
obeyed the exhortation addressed to him by his country, 
by a long enslaved and helpless race, by humanity, by 
the ages past, and the coming ages. 

Be just and fear not ; 

Let all the ends thou aimest at be thj- cuuntry's, 

Thy God's, and truth's ; 

Then if thou fullest, thou fallest a blessed martyr. 

VI. 

But that which gives depth and intensity to the popu- 
lar emotion, is a feeling of glowing and righteous indig- 
nation. Let no man be afraid either of the expression, 



22 

or of the thing which it expresses. It is no part of my 
theology to strike Justice out of the character or govern- 
ment of God. It is no part of my political creed to ex- 
pel it from human goYernments as if it were the synonym 
of vengeance, and the opposite of mercy. It is no part 
of my practical religion to repress the throbbings of 
righteous indignation. We must not befool ourselves 
and emasculate our religious manhood by substituting a 
feeble sentimentality and a sickly pitifulness for crime, 
for that noble indignation against wrong which is but 
another manifestation of supreme loyalty to right. "And 
when he had looked round about on them tvUh anger, 
beinsf grieved." Such is the record of the feeling of 
Jesus on one occasion, at the cruelty and hypocrisy of 
the Jews. I suppose it was essentially the same emo- 
tion as that which we experience at the sight of evil 
doing. And again — if that terrific denunciation of Christ 
against the Scribes and Pharisees, when the repeated 
"Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees" sounds like the 
whirr of an oft-descending lash, is not the expression of 
a righteous indignation — what is it? And again — when 
he was unjustly and brutally smitten, and exclaimed: — 
"'If I have done evil, bear witness of the evil; but if not, 
why smitest thou me?" Was he not righteously indig- 
nant? We shall indeed resemble evil spirits if Ave allow 
righteous reprobation to pass into revenge; but we shall 
not resemble God if we seek to keep it from running 
into sin by its annihilation. And now I contend that it 



would not be pious, but inhuman, if we did not regard 
this awful crime with swelling indignation. It is not 
often that such a crime is possible. It is not often that 
one dagger or one bullet can pierce a whole nation's 
heart. It is not indignation alone at the poor wretch 
who struck the blow, that should be felt. He was in- 
deed a fit subject for this evil slave spirit to enter and 
possess. He was one whose profession and habit it was 
to utter great swelling words of sentiment which called 
itself brave and noble, while living a base dissipated life, 
and giving himself up to all vile and violent passions. 
And he must be blind indeed who does not see that it is 
to the baffled and enraged slave spirit that our President 
has fallen a victim. Who can doubt it? The system 
developes of necessity, arrogance, cruelty, and a lordly 
will. When rebellion was inaugurated in behalf of this 
system of oppression, these qualities were all intensified 
and deepened. '■' Rebellion," says inspiration, "is as the 
sin of witchcraft." Witchcraft is a revolt from, and an 
attempted independence of Heaven — constituted powers. 
And so is rebellion a revolt against the heaven-consti- 
tuted power of an estabhshed, righteous government. 
Hence it takes with it as its inspiration and evil enthu- 
siasm, a fiendish hatred. When it fails in its object and 
is driven back, it becomes murderous rage. " Out of the 
heart" so occupied, proceed murders. 

And now what is this poor creature who murdered 
our beloved President ? What is he but first a victim 



24 

and then an instrument of this evil spirit ? What was 
his soul but a house swept and garnished for this spirit? 
There is good reason to believe that, more than once, 
persons high in office and position in this revolted gov- 
ernment have been occupied with schemes for the Pres- 
ident's assassination. It is beyond all question that his 
murder was arranged and attempted when he first went 
to the Cajiital. And thus this attempted revolution, 
which has abused the noble w^ords liberty and inde- 
pendence, " to blazon evil deeds and consecrate a crime," 
began with an attempted, and goes out with an executed 
assassination ! But whether or no this murder were de- 
vised or known or connived at by officials, it is assuredly 
but the legitimate result of what has been constantly 
taught and professed by all classes in the rebel confed- 
eracy. All their youth have been taught that it would 
be a noble deed to remove this monster from the earth. 
He would be a nobler than Brutus, and slay a worse than 
Caesar, who should do this deed. This system has con- 
verted gentle women into furies, and high-toned gentle- 
men into brigands. Oh, it is a fearful thing to be hurried 
into a passionate championship for the wrong ! Mothers 
have magnified this spirit of murderous revenge, not 
against wrong, but against I'ight's resistance of wrong, at 
the family board. They have talked murder. Politicians 
have shrieked it from the hustings ; individuals have 
advertised for it in the ncAvspapers ; statesmen have de- 
claimed it in the halls of legislation ; generals have pro- 



25 

claimed it at the head of armies ; the public journals 
have preached it with passionate iteration. As I have 
elsewhere Avritten, this assassination is but the conver- 
sion of the Richmond Sentinel from a literary to a lit- 
eral bowie-knife, and of the Examiner into a revolver, 
Avielded, not by a theoretical, but an actual assassin. It 
is the same spirit that buried our poor boys, after the 
battle of Bull Run, with their faces downward, and con- 
verted their skulls into drinking-cups. It is the same 
spirit which led to the systematic and slow starving of 
our poor prisoners, in the midst of communities which 
we have since learned were abounding with provisions, 
and in prisons which were in sight of churches, where 
bishop and priest knelt with Jefferson Davis, and called 
themselves miserable sinners, and then rose and lifted 
no finger to alleviate this unspeakable atrocity. And 
that w^hich this spirit has so persistently preached has 
at length been practiced. Our President has been mur- 
dered. And now, in full view of the orighi and the re- 
morseless character and the awful wrongs w^'ought by 
this spirit, shall I call upon 3^ou to deal gently and for- 
givingly, I do not say with this assassin, but with the 
spirit which has been his evil inspiration ? Shall I bid 
you to repress your indignation at this spirit, and call 
that repression Christian meekness and forbearance ? 
No ! In full recollection of the place in which I stand, 
and of the sacred office which I bear, I say, solemnly 
and calmly, No ! It were treason to right ; it were fra- 



26 

ternization with evil ; it were to declare yourself, unlike 
your Master, not the eternal foe but the ally and apolo- 
gist of the Devil. Brethren, we must prepare ourselves 
for stern duties. While merciful and magnanimous to 
the misguided and the penitent, we must hew this Agag 
of unrelenting murder in pieces before the Lord. Not — 
God forbid ! — in a spirit of revenge, not in unholy zeal 
for a holy cause, but in calm and indignant sorrow that 
such a spirit should appear among us, and such a duty 
devolve upon us, should this work be done. I call upon 
you then, in this sacred place, and on this anniversary, 
as I understand it to be, of the death of that young 
Christian hero, your first pastor, who was the earliest to 
see and the bravest to protest against and denounce the 
iniquity of slavery, when it was walking dominant in 
the high places of powder — a moral martyr to this cause, 
whom you so generously rescued and sustained — I call 
upon you by his cherished memory, and I call upon you 
by the memory of our venerated common father, snatched 
from us in our hour of extremest need, to breathe here 
and now, to Heaven, the solemn vow that you will not 
rest from the right use of all your influence and power, 
by w^ord and deed, until the last clinging fibres of this 
gigantic upas tree, which has so long shed its poison 
upon the nation, shall be uprooted from the soil. For 
Zion's sake we will not rest, and for Jerusalem's sake 
we will not hold our peace, until the righteousness thereof 
go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp 



27 

that burnetii ; until before their blaze this accursed spirit 
of oppression of a harmless and helpless race, and of mur- 
derous hatred of those Avho Avould protect them_, shall flit 
back to its nntiA'e hell, to appear no more among us. 

VI. 

The one only consolation in this our great sorrow, 
which we can take fully to our hearts to-day, is the un- 
speakable one of knowing that our beloved President 
has been led during the fearful trials to which he has 
been subjected to the personal and practical knowledge 
of the Redeemer. We believe that he dates his de- 
cision, and his new experience as a Christian, from the 
impressions make upon his mind and heart by visiting 
the fearful field of Gettysburg!!. And, although the 
Christian sentiment of the land regrets that Mr. Lin- 
coln came to his death in a theatre ; yet we must make 
no narrow canons for others' consciences. Hast thou 
faith ? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he 
who condemneth not himself in that thing which he al- 
loweth," His attendance at that time was evidently 
from a good-natured desire to gratify the people, and 
not from his own inclination. It is certain that he ex- 
hibited the fruits and acted upon the principles of a 
Christian. Many who profess more, would do well if 
they did as much. Many persons in high positions often 
feel compelled, as a part of their official duty, to be 
present at many places for which they have no taste, no 



^8 

inclination, and which j^erhaps they may disapprove. 
Let us not too harshly judge them. Let us remember 
that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but 
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
We rejoice to know that Mr. Lincoln had become a man 
of prayer, and had learned to resort in his perplexities 
to God. His last immortal inaugural was so full of 
Christian sentiment, that it has been called in ridicule 
an extract from a sermon. In our assurance of his 
Christian character, we find our highest consolation. If 
as he disappears we cry out, in our bereavement and an- 
guish, "My father! my father!" we are consoled as we 
are able to add, as we see him escorted to the skies, 
"The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" 

VIL 

And now let us strive to gather up some of the lessons 
which this dreadful tragedy bequeaths to us. As Mr. 
Lincoln passes, he leaves behind some most impressive 
teachings. It is said that after his assassination the only 
motion which he made was a feeble lifting up of his right 
hand. That hand never lifted to strike or to oppress; 
that hand unstained by bribes ; that hand that had the 
habit of being so busy for us, that it moved unconsciously 
when the brain that had guided it was benumbed; that 
hand which wrote no sentence which dying he need wish 
to blot; that liand which penned the immortal proclama- 
tion of emancipation, and whose last work was mercy — 



29 

if that hand could have again been lifted in obedience 
to a conscious brain and heart, it would have enforced, 
in its dying gesticulations, solemn and impressive teach- 
ings and exhortations. Let us receive them as if they 
came from him. 

1. He would have exhorted us to new and holy unan- 
imity in the work of national regeneration. 

2. He would have urged us to imitate his own noble 
forbearance and magnanimity in dealing with the misled 
and misinformed masses, wdio through a mistaken fury 
in avenging fancied wrongs, have brought upon them- 
selves real wrongs, and have already suffered more than 
his kind nature w^ould have prompted him to inflict. 

3. And by his death itself another lesson is conveyed 
to us which we fear he was too gentle ever to have im- 
parted; but the justice of which, could he have forseen 
his assassination, he would have been compelled to ad- 
mit. It is the lesson that, inasmuch as we now see and 
know the hideous spirit in which this rebellion has been 
conceived and carried on, we will always and everywhere 
rebuke it and fight it ; that we will make no truce and 
have no fellowship with it; that we will put a just stigma 
upon it, and strip off its masks of honorableness and 
worth ; that we will pay no honor to those who have not 
only inaugurated this wanton rebellion, but have carried 
it on in a spirit alien from the civilization and Chris- 
tianity of the age. As for myself, I desire no personal 
or church fellowship with those who have led and fo- 



30 

meiited this rebellion, be they Priests or Laymen. Those 
who have seen our poor soldiers starve and die in filth 
and squalor, and have uttered no protests, and made no 
efforts to remove this revolting inhumanity — I desire no 
communion with them, until thc}^ shall have purged 
themselves of complicity with these fearful crimes against 
their brethren, or repented in dust and ashes of their 
sins. If this shall be schism in the church, it will he 
unity with God. 

4. Our departed President would have exhorted us to 
stand by and support, with our efforts and our prayers, 
the successor to his honors and his cares, in whose pa- 
triotism, energy and ability he placed much confidence. 
I was a frequent witness of his heroism and fidelity in 
the session of Congress in 1860-Gl, when, fiiithful among 
the faithless, he alone of all the Senators was uncompro- 
mising in his loyalty. Let us pray that he may have not 
a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound 
mind, and that he may have grace both to do justly and 
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God. 

5. And lastly, and as a more personal lesson, let us 
learn, that character will ultimately make itself known, 
and that if it be true and just it will dispel all slanders 
and confute all falsehoods. Mr. Lincoln has never an- 
swered accusations, he has never complained of the in- 
numerable falsehoods and criminations to which he was 
so long and unjustly subjected. They covered him as 



31 

the black morning fogs sometimes shroud the sun, but 
they have disappeared before the clear shining of his 
rounded character as it ascended to the meridian of its 
fame and glory. 

And now we give our beloved Father up to history. 
We need not doubt where his place will be. It will not 
be in the blood-red volume where Alexander, and Ctesar 
and Napoleon are inscribed. But it will be among the 
great and good, the benefactors of the race. With the 
beneficent Antonines, with William of Orange, with 
Washington, with Wilberforce, with Cavour, with Gara- 
baldi — noble Garabaldi, who will now rejoice the more 
that he has given the name of Lincoln to the grandchild 
of his martyred wife — with these venerated and honored 
names will his be gathered. Soon he will be taken from 
us. While he yet lies in the Capitol, and while his 
obsequies are in progress, he seems yet to be, in 
some sense with us. But he is to be put away from us 
in a distant grave. No, let me not say that! The great 
heart of the country opens to receive him, and there shall 
he be buried — buried there as they are buried who lie in 
green and consecrated spots, where love comes to plant 
and tend the flowers which speak of resurrection, and 
where sadness is ennobled and cheered alike by memory 
and hope — buried there as are the great and good in vast 
cathedrals, resting amid the solemnities of lofty worship 
and the grandeur of sacred and imperishable architecture, 



32 % <^ 

with memorials which tell successive generations of their 
virtues and their fame. 

Then sorrow not brethren as those without rich present 
consolation, as well as hope — for if Jesus died and rose 
again, even so, them also that sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him. 



